


Puppy Therapy

by ald0us



Category: Lord of War (2005)
Genre: Puppies, Vitaly is a sinnamon roll, Yuri angsts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 20:27:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5980021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ald0us/pseuds/ald0us
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Vitaly found the dog. He refused to let it go. Now Yuri Orlov is wondering just what the hell he was thinking when he let the puppy into his operation...and by ‘puppy,’ of course, he most certainly is referring to his brother.</p><p>Crack-fluff I should be shot for writing, pun intended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Puppy Therapy

“Yuri! Yuri, come look!”

Yuri Orlov didn’t look up.

“...seven, eight, nine, and...one-hundred-two thousand.” Now he glanced up, tiredly, trying to spot his brother among the African tin-and-mud shacks. “Yes, Vi?”

“Come look what I found!”

Yuri sighed. “Do I have to?”

“Yeah, Yuri, you have to,” Vitaly replied.

Yuri snapped the briefcase shut with force, annoyed. “Where are you?”

“Fine, I’ll bring it to you,” Vitaly’s rather peeved voice replied. It was only a moment before Yuri’s brother walked into the warehouse, clutching what was quite possibly the ugliest thing Yuri had ever seen.

“What...is it?” he asked, sidling away with ample caution.

“It’s a puppy,” Vitaly said, his eyes glued to the mangy pelt curled up in his arms.

“That may be many things, Vi, but it is not a puppy,” Yuri said, wishing his little brother would put the damn thing down and wipe that stupid expression from his face.

Vitaly looked up at him, eyes wide with annoyingly innocent disbelief. “But...” he said, “Isn’t she cute?”

Yuri gave the “puppy” another chance, if not for Vitaly’s sake than anything. Nothing changed. In fact, it seemed uglier than ever. Scrawny, and with mangy, matted fur and filthy, too-long claws, it seemed more of a joke than a dog. The thing looked up at Yuri with shiny black eyes and snuffled with an undeniably snotty nose, and began to lick Vitaly’s hands. Vitaly laughed and shifted it so it was closer to him. It began to lick his face with gusto.

“You are going to get a disease just holding that thing.” Yuri told him. “You’d best put it down now, it’ll be a few hours before we leave...”

He trailed off. Something in Vitaly’s face told him he was saying the wrong thing.

“...what?” he said at last, unsettled by his brother’s stare.

“Yuri, he’s coming with us.”

Yuri gave an inward groan. Leave it to Vitaly to force him to be the big bad brother and make him leave the disgusting, smelly, and filthy dog behind in the sewers where it belonged. “Actually, it’s not.”

“Actually, ‘it' is a _she_.”

“He, she, it, whatever. She’s not going anywhere.”

Vitaly would have stood akimbo had his arms not been occupied by a wriggling dog. “I’ll buy him a plane ticket,” he promised.

“I don’t care. The dog stays.”

“The dog stays, and I stay.” Vitaly fired back.

Yuri blinked. “In Africa.”

Vitaly lifted his chin. “Yeah.”

“ _In Africa._ ” Yuri repeated.

Vitaly exhaled sharply and scuffed the dirt floor with his boot’s toe. “I really want to keep her, Yuri,” he said. “She needs me, can’t you see?”

As if on cue, the dog turned what it clearly thought were big puppy eyes on Yuri. To him, however, it looked more like it was sick or something. He found himself unswayed.

That is, until he looked up at his brother’s puppy eyes. Big, blue, and perfectly artless. Vitaly wanted the fucking dog. He wanted it badly. For some reason, some insane reason, he had to have the damn fleabag.

“Vitaly—“

“C’mon, Yuri, please?” Vitaly begged.

For a long time, Yuri couldn’t say anything. He thought of all the times Vitaly’d said that when they were young. All the times he’d said it period. Always with that same pleading gaze, the one that said, ‘I’m going to do something stupid if you say no, so you should just say yes.’ Still he could say nothing. So he said, “What are you going to name it?”

It was a dire mistake. A grin broke over Vitaly’s face. “You like her!” he crowed. “She’s won you over!” He allowed the mangy thing to lick his face some more. “Yes, Yuri likes you! You melted his stone heart! Good for you, good girl, good for you—“

“Shut up, Vi.”

Vitaly did, falling into a meditative, far-off gaze that seemed almost rapt. “I think...I think I’ll call her...Missy.”

“You most certainly will not.” Yuri had to put his foot down. “Nor Candy, nor Angel, nor Holly. God no.”

“Then what should I name her?” Vitaly was pouting.

Yuri thought a moment, mentally scoffing at his own participation in this particular charade. “Valerie?” he suggested.

Vitaly’s face lit up like a birthday cake. “See, you’re great at this, Yuri. Valerie is just going to love Uncle Yuri, isn’t she? Isn’t she, Val?”

Valerie licked his face in agreement, nearly spilling out of his arms in her gusto.

“That’s exactly what I was afraid of,” Yuri muttered, but was ignored.

 

*

 

 _Beware of Dog._ He’d taken the thing down after Val had come to live with him in the restaurant, as if afraid Valerie’d be insulted. Maybe that was why he died: he forgot. Or maybe it was because he’d remembered. Yuri wasn’t sure, he couldn’t be sure of anything anymore.

He took another large swig of Vitaly’s vodka, surveying the cramped, stainless-steel kitchen. If he got really really drunk, he could sometimes imagine his little brother slouching around it, whining about everything and nothing, cursing like a sailor as he attempted to cook. Just like always.

Except it wasn’t like always. Vitaly was dead. Vitaly was _dead_. He’d never again drag his stoned ass into Yuri’s life, nor any strays, and certainly not any more cheap (or not-so-cheap) girlfriends.

Valerie gave a piteous yowl, rubbing her snotty wet nose on Yuri’s pantleg, demanding to know where her only friend in the world had gone.

“I don’t know, Valerie,” Yuri said. “He certainly didn’t go to heaven, did he?”

Valerie snuffled and dropped to the floor, resting her head disconsolately on her paws.

“Though, it’s not fair if he went to hell,” Yuri continued. “He doesn’t—didn’t—deserve hell. He doesn’t deserve it, does he, Val?”

Valerie blinked her greasy eyes at him, but said nothing.

“He didn’t,” Yuri continued, taking a few more long draws at the vodka. “He didn’t deserve heaven—I mean, you gotta agree with me too, he was a real screw-up—but he didn’t deserve hell. Not hell. Not Vitaly. Right?”

Valerie still said nothing.

“Look at me,” Yuri snorted. “Talking to a dog.”

He laughed as a voice in his head said, _‘Don’t be worried until she starts talking back.”_

“Then again, I always talked to Vitaly when he was high, and I guess that’s basically the same thing,” Yuri shrugged. “Except you didn’t crash Christmas and run into the tree, did you? And you certainly didn’t crash my wedding....God, he really saved me, didn’t he?”

Valerie remained silent.

“He was always saving me,” Yuri continued on, emptying a large fraction of the bottle in his hand. “He did it all the time. I mean, sort of. I saved him even more, but I mean, for Vitaly, he really did...I’m a terrible brother, Val. He always said I was a good brother, but...you know Vitaly, he was usually high when he said it, or in withdrawal. Which is the same, you know that. And...god, I’m drunk, aren’t I?”

Val made no comment, but it was clear to Yuri she thought so.

“I don’t have anyone left, do I?” Yuri asked. “But neither do you. Do you think...I mean, I’d understand if you didn’t forgive me, but...maybe you could come live with me, now?”

Valerie all but raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, it’s the least I can do, right?” Yuri said hurriedly. “It’s not like I’m taking Vi’s place, I’d just...you know, feed you. Let you stay with me.”

Valerie said nothing; Yuri emptied the bottle. _Beware of dog_.

Yuri held the empty, dusty bottle up to the light, and peered at it. “We wouldn’t be so lonely, Val. Together. Maybe we wouldn’t be so lonely.”

Valerie turned her dumb, dark eyes on him. After a moment, he met her gaze, uncertain. Then, with a rheumatic huff, she turned away from him and returned to chewing on her paws, ignoring him for all the world. Yeah. That’s what he thought.

“C’mon,” he said, shepherding her towards the pet crate he’d found in his drunken stumbling through Vitaly’s apartment. She dug her claws into the floor and whined in protest, but Yuri scooped her up and deposited her into the crate. She yowled piteously and scratched at the plastic floor of the cage; Yuri pretended not to notice. “Like it or not, I’m the only one you’ve got left.”

 _Like me._ It was a bitter thought.

He hefted the crate and it was heavy, far heavier than a dog could be. He dropped his empty vodka bottle in the trash as he left. It landed with a hollow _thunk._ Val had gone silent. She would be silent for a very long time.

Yuri was okay with that.

**Author's Note:**

> Once trash, always trash.


End file.
